‘Seth Rogen’s Hilarity For Charity’ On Netflix: Laugh At Some Dick Jokes For A Good Cause

It’s a question Seth Rogen, Laura Miller Rogen and the writers for their Seth Rogen’s Hilarity For Charity special have anticipated already. A recurring bit finds Seth Rogen looking to trick the Netflix algorithm by including something from all of the possible demographics and genres, from nature documentaries to foodies. They also film the vast majority of the sketches onstage in front of the live audience, which keeps the energy up in the room and your attention on the screen.

And there’s all sorts of insider mockery of both Netflix and Rogen.

Nick Kroll mocks Rogen’s stoner laugh, comparing the sound to “a motorcycle drowning.” Ike Barinholtz as the devil takes Rogen to task for his career choices and confesses to loving Seth MacFarlane more. And this is all just to set up the benefit’s conceit — that by producing the best charity event ever, perhaps “we all don’t go to hell one day.”

DONATEHFC.COM appears online during the final 20 minutes and through the end credits, after Rogen and his wife have explained why raising money to help care for Alzheimer’s patients is so personal for them. Lauren Miller Rogen’s mother was diagnosed with the disease when she was only 55. They watched her deteriorate over the past 13 years, and with no real cure or treatment available, Rogen said “we did the only thing we knew how to do as comedy writers: we gathered some friends together to host a show called Hilarity for Charity.” In the six years of Hilarity For Charity before this Netflix special, they’d raised enough money to donate 200,000 hours of free at-home care for other families; a phone call to one such family illustrates just how far even a little bit of help can go.

As for the comedy itself, the self-aware sketches hit more frequently than the stand-up performances, precisely because of their awareness. Chris Hardwick shows up 26 minutes into the 70-minute special to host a brief Talking Hilarity For Charity talk show parody with Rogen, in which he’d already polled the audience to find 86 percent of us didn’t care for the opening dick jokes. A bit parodying Netflix’s comedy domination suggests the platform has 3,000 comedy specials already, although Chelsea Peretti, portraying a Netflix executive, deadpans: “We’ve got another 64,000 specials in the can… So many of the people are like ‘why did you guys give those people Netflix specials?’ Well, I’ll tell you why. We’re making so much money you would not believe it.”

Michael Che, Michelle Wolf, John Mulaney, Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, Sarah Silverman and Tiffany Haddish all offer up short and mostly sweet comedy sets. Mostly sweet because half of the acts either didn’t take into account a benefit crowd might act tight in the room, or didn’t care, and went for the jokes regardless of whether they might be in poor taste.

Haddish gets the headlining comedy slot (although Post Malone, performing a cover of “Return of the Mack” with Craig Robinson and his band, officially closes out the proceedings) and is the only performer to truly play to both the crowd in attendance and the cameras. “I knew there was other rich people besides the ones I see on TV,” she jokes at one point.

Hopefully more than a few of them not only manage to find this special on Netflix, but more importantly, donate to donatehfc.com.